"My girlfriend thought it was pretty sweet that I named one of my XCOM troopers after her. Then she realized how terrible I am at XCOM."

Something like that yeah. She was happy when I said I named a character after her, but when I told her she died in the line of duty she was quite upset, and from now on I'm not allowed to make her anything but a sniper (although she actually died even after I made her a sniper).

I only play classic ironman so I grind through troops too fast to name them. I think in my current game I'm at ~60 casualties, maybe more. I suspect they ran out of space in the memorial, and the world governments are sending me convicted prisoners instead of soldiers....

Those cars are shot at with lasers and plasma - don't complain when they explode!

Either way, the one time I played the new XCOM (*cough*piratedbutplantobuynow*cough*), I just kept the default names and nicks. Most customisation was for their colors to tell the difference between class (e.g. my snipers were all red, assault all white,...) Better not to get too attached to your troops. Then again, I only lost cannon fodder back then.Tho, I might change the Nickname-philosophy when I own the thing and name them what I feel like half the time.

Yeah, I heard it's best not to name anyone until they get strong enough.Like not naming a puppy until it's old enough so you know it's probably not going to die.:/ Sorry for your loss. :( I heard Susan died too.(In someones game.)

Me: "Dude, look, I named a soldier after you!"Him: "Really? You can do that? That's pretty cool!Me: "Yeah, about to take him on his first mission!"Him: "Cool, let me know how it goes."

*three turns later*

Me: "Um... so, about your soldier. He kind of... died."Him: "What? Already?! How?!"Me: "Well, I kind of didn't expect those two Mutons to pelt him with grenades, and he kind of... yeah..."Him: "So re-load the game!"Me: "Yeah... I can't. See, it's an ironman game meaning there's no re-loads. So all deaths are permanent."Him: "You suck."Me: "I know."

I'm playing the game on hard, and I have yet to have a death and about 6 months in game time into it. I'm a defensive player :D.

One of the soldiers I got is a woman named Kerrigan, so I nicknamed her Hive Queen. Also got this massive Puerto Rican with a thick lip mustache who I have given the name "The Stache". Simply naming you soldiers is entertaining.

i wish i could just name my squad members after people i hate and watch them die but since i am a very defensive player and have my assault people all specced in the "not dying" tree i loose very few people, so far all the people i did loose i lost during terror missions because i those entrenching your entire team and having your snipers kill the crap out of everything is not a sound tactic

Normal difficulty, iron man mode, only two guys dead so far (not counting the three unavoidable losses in the tutorial). Although one of them was the heavy you get at the start. Got nommed by a Chysalid and had to be put down shortly thereafter. I wasn't too happy about that.

Also lost a few SHIVs, but I consider them expendable. They always get sent into suspicious rooms first.

I've never really been into naming my XCOM soldiers, even though I'm a big fan of coming up with interesting names in other games when I have the choice. It adds more variety and realism when I see the names they come with and how they're influenced by the countries they come from. Rather than give them a personality myself, I let the gameplay dictate it more. I think I did give one of my original recruits the classic XCOM soldier hair, but after he died I never bothered with it again.

I never name soldiers I suck at coming up with names although I have been thinking of naming my commanders and Squaddie although probably only the really good ones.If I do ever start naming it probably won't be friend and family but characters like naming my one captain captain Shepard I'm so clever.

I named a few soldiers after people I know. The only one still kicking is the one named after me, who coincidentally is the best agent I have. Reached colonel with 40+ kills. Probably because, while the rest were dying, he was in the back, sniping.

I made myself in the game along with my friends we where Chaos Squad only 2 of us lived to the end of the war.... 2 died in a botched mission and the other one died in a blaze of glory being the chosen one

Imagine that you've got yourself a military corp. And you want to keep up moral. All you have to do is create a Legend among them.

... All one would have to do, is have one man, who seems like he never dies; even in the toughest of battles. But really, he's just being replaced with the next guy to walk along, who you dress up to look him. So One legendary man, is really a hundred.

Instant Legend.

And it becomes a legendarily funny story if anyone ever leaks the information.

I don't really customize or rename but after the first set which all got it my Majors and Colonels will get the Guile hair. Although I recently lost the guy who survives the first mission if you have tutorial mode on. Rest in peace Jorge "Thunder" Marquez.